Wednesday, August 14, 2013

An Unrehearsed Program of News and Opinions

Issue One: Jack Germond, dead at the age of 85.

For you kiddies too young to remember, "The McLaughlin Group" –
an unrehearsed program of news and opinions – was pretty much all we had back
in the 1980s as far as political shoutmatches go. CNN was in its infancy, blogs
and the Internet weren’t even that far, but every Sunday morning, we could tune
in to four journalists and a sybaritic priest* arguing over the issues of the
day.

John McLaughlin had been a Jesuit priest and unofficial
advisor to the Nixon administration before being defrocked and turning to TV,
roughly in that order. He was joined each weekend on his PBS chatfest by the rumpled,
cynical Baltimore columnist Jack Germond, who served basically as the group’s
Tip O’Neill, an old-fashioned big-city liberal. He was joined by some
combination of Eleanor Clift as Pat Schroeder, Fred Barnes as Trent Lott,
Morton Kondracke as Sam Nunn, and Pat Buchanan as Pat Buchanan. (They’d also
occasionally flatter someone like Mortimer Zuckerman – whose journalism
experience consisted of owning U.S. News and World Report – by treating them as
if anyone cared about their opinions.)

Issue Two: Does the World Need Another Teddy White?

Germond, along with his partner Jules Witcover, wrote
quadrennial doorstops on the presidential elections. I was unfortunate enough
to buy and read “Blue Smoke and Mirrors,” their book on the 1988 campaign. Not
only was the Bush-Dukakis race one of the dullest elections in American
history, but they had to misfortune to be outclassed that cycle by one of the
best election books ever, Robert Ben Cramer’s “What It Takes.” I would quote
you something from “Blue Smoke and Mirrors,” but I left it in a box labeled
FREE BOOKS long ago.

Issue Three: A Stinking Pile of Crap

The genius of "The McLaughlin Group" was that it was the first
show to recognize that politics could be fun, especially if it was largely substance-free.
No one made any pretense that anyone was being enlightened by it. In an Esquire
article on the show, Eleanor Clift called it “the Super Bowl of bullshit.”
McLaughlin generally acted like such a buffoon that he was eventually lampooned
by Dana Carvey on “Saturday Night Live.”

Fred Barnes may have kidded himself that he was making a
serious case for something or other, but Germond never fell for that. He made
no bones about the fact that he was doing the show for the money. Once his daughter
finished medical school, Germond quit the show. He sent John McLaughlin a fax
reading simply, “Bye-bye.”

Predictions:

It would be nice if Germond would be remembered for one of
his campaign books, or for his charmingly titled memoir "Fat Man in a Middle
Seat," but heck, I haven’t even read that. He’ll be remembered as someone who
held the banner for old-fashioned liberalism in a period of Reaganism and New
Democrats, and as someone who made politics fun. Let’s hope he’s not remembered
as someone who paved the way for the likes of "George" and "Politico."

My take on the McLaughlin group classic lineup (McLaughlin, Barnes, Clift, Germond, Kondracke) is that it worked because it was a family sitcom. Irascible paterfamilias McLaughlin, perpetually quarreling bro and sis Barnes and Clift, tag-along little brother Mort, trying to get respect and always failing, and somewhat disreputable but congenial Uncle Jack.